How do you get there from here

I seem to have an odd habit of being around police stations for some of the real touchstones of my generation. Not because of an arrest record or anything - but it will be difficult to explain that to my children - but because of work.

The morning of 9/11 was spent in a newsroom and partially in the 8th District on Chicago's southwest side and I saw the coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings in a few Minneapolis precincts we're working in.

This is only worth noting because the police don't see crushing news like that the way most people do. In fact, 9/11 was fairly remarkable because it was the first time I'd seen these untouchable men and women actually internalize something that horrible - it usually rolls off their backs publicly.

In private is another story. Firefighters, police and the reporters who cover them have a bad habit of gallows humor to take the edge off of the awful crap they wade through on a daily basis.

Murders, fires, child abuse, animal abuse and other things no sane human being should ever see are part of the job for cops and firefighters, but 9/11 was the only time I'd seen an entire department just shake their heads and try to move forward with their days.

That was until Monday.

As the numbers continued to edge higher by the minute, the room we were working in grew quieter and as word spread, the number of heads sticking in through the door to catch a few minutes of the coverage increased. It was all very strange as we all tried to keep working on our respective jobs without saying much.

In the vein, here's something from Poynter's Morning Meeting today, with a former news director from Denver who oversaw the Columbine coverage offering her best advice to colleagues in Roanoke:

I have been thinking of you and wishing you all of my best thoughts and prayers. Your strength and leadership will be very important in these next few days. A few things that were helpful to me... never forget that you want to do right by your community.

You will have networks and others around for the next few days/weeks, but you have to remember to do what you think is right -- and not just what they are doing. Your work today will plant the seeds for the stories that will become a part of your coverage fabric for the next decade plus. Competition can be invigorating, but not at the expense of making mistakes. The stakes are too high.

As far as your coverage -- pay attention to your community. You will get your tone and style from them. As for you -- just be ready to be human and be okay with that. I can only assume that you have been going non-stop for the past day. At some point, you will stop to take a breath and everything will hit you... the enormity of the situation, the loss and the pain.

Find time to reconnect with your family and friends. You'll need that to keep you nourished as you try to keep others on your staff nourished. If someone hasn't -- make that call to get a counselor or two into your newsroom. Your staff won't expect to start having the feelings they will. Keep doing the temperature checks on them -- and when you can -- get them a break. Be patient with them on the phone... they may get testy and impatient and angry. That's to be expected. That may be one of the only ways they can be human when they are expected to be objective. Listen and be a good coach and have a good plan -- and don't leave them hanging. And, never forget that what you are doing is so very important.

Your viewers and users need you today and tomorrow more than they may have in a very long time. Hang in there -- I know you're up to the task. We're thinking of you. And -- let us know if you need anything.

Just something worth keeping in mind as the coverage continues to develop and the national outlets begin to drift from the human stories and into the muck of what pushed a person to murder indiscriminately.

Because as macabre as it may be, that's the thing most of us are trying to justify in our mental moral ledger - how did the shooter get here from there? More specifically, how would I get there from here? Is it even possible?

Now with NBC being handed the exclusive of the year, the darker sides of the story, as well as our collective interest in it, is beginning to turn as we inhale as much information as we can and try to make sense of the senseless.

I just thought it was worth noting that as the next wave is ready to crash down - the ugly, ratings grab that is looming - there are members of the media who are trying to do things the right way and help repair a fractured community and not just slow down for a national audience willing to gawk at what amounts to a horrible roadside accident.

I'm looking forward to seeing how the folks from Roanoke keep things together in the next month.

(Photo from the Chicago Tribune)